Best Bike Builds in ‘Bama!
Hey Rollers!
Welcome back to the Gravel Roll Gazette, our semi-regular blog all about the Gravel Roll, Gravel riding and just gravel in general.
Today's edition we're reviewing some of the staff's favorite bikes they saw over the weekend of the Opelika Okey Dokey!
At the end there will also be a form where you can submit your own build along with photos and a short write-up and we'll feature it in our newsletter and here in the blog!
Without further adieu, here's some of the Best Bike Build we saw in 'Bama!
Photo by Jasmine Rogers. Gravel Roll’s Best Bike. Specialized Crux with FatBOI tires.
Above we see my personal favorite bike of the entire race. A young gentleman’s Specialized Crux in the Candy Pink. I can’t remember exactly how wide these tires are but I remember when taking a closer look this was about as wide as the Crux could handle. I’ve never seen any wider, have you?
I mean just look at that color how could you not love that thing!
Another photo of the Crux, by Jasmine Rogers.
Below is a Specialized Diverge, this color is so clean, even and maybe especially when the bike isn’t. The tan sidewalls rand brown bar tape really make this thing pop. Did you know that on the Diverge frames you can pop that bottle cage open and use the hollow frame for storage? Makes the long rides that much easier, and as Adam Sandler would say… “You can keep your…” Vegobears in there?
Twinning! These ladies had the same frameset but chose different paths for their accessories and other elements. It’s crazy how different the whole setup looks with some different colored bar tape and tires!
Got a bike rack? No need when you ride with the homies! Some ingenious engineering by some rollers here to keep their bikes standing at rest stop 1. Reminds me of that one song…
This bike here is one of my favorites. Why? Because it’s from Ozark Trail, Walmart’s outdoor company. Now some people might say, “Walmart sucks.” But here’s the thing, Walmart has been doing a lot more to provide affordable and still industry standard MTB and Gravel Bikes than a lot of the Bike Brands we all love and that’s what our race is all about.
Who cares if you don’t have the sickest carbon bike on the trail. It’s all about getting on a bike at all!
That’s why my favorite bikes to see at a Gravel Roll are the ones that you’d see on the rack at the store. Riding bikes is for everyone. And Bike Races should be for everyone too. If you’d like to share your bike, or if you saw yours here, let us know!
And have a super serious good time this week!
